| |
Carl Lee:
Reforming statistics
education
Mathematics
Mathematics professor Carl Lee is using a
National Science Foundation grant to help reform
statistics education by developing a real-time
database that allows students to do hands-on
learning. His research in student learning shows
that students typically find statistical
concepts to be very abstract and that many
students need visual and other aides to
understand statistics.
Example
Among other activities, Lee asks students to
guess how many raisins are in a box in order to
get them thinking about distribution, variation,
and the difference between counting and
guessing.
Significance
Real-time hands-on learning helps students
and future teachers understand how
statistics work in the real world. “It also
teaches them that you can’t always trust
what you read in the newspapers. They must
make sure they know what’s behind the
numbers.”
|
